I've made it no secret that I love me some co-op PixelJunk Monsters. As per my previous blog, Encore gave us more without really changing much. Here are a few ideas to either improve the game or challenge players in different ways. Some of these might have to be mutually exclusive, but are some ideas that could be fun to explore.

Even out the difficulty
This is more aimed at Encore. What is the point of adding a casual difficulty, and then making that setting pretty hard? Further, the rainbow system can lock people out of levels and frustrate them if a single enemy keeps getting through. Perhaps instead it could be based on how many cumulative babies you have saved. To provide an example, there are 20 babies you are able to lose in each level. Perhaps 5 levels are open to you at the start of the game. Maybe to unlock level 6, you need to save 80 babies. That way players don't even need to rainbow any levels so long as they average saving 16 babies over those 5 levels. Rainbows should still be in the game of course for trophies.

While trial and error is a part of tower defense games and some might argue with this idea, but it might help alleviate this minor frustration by showing players all of the waves they can expect before the level begins. It sucks to get to the last few waves of a 20 wave level, only to find out you need lasers to deal with the bee-type things that are resistant to standard anti-air and you don't have time to build enough. While the game does show what type of enemies to expect over the next few waves, and also shows when enemies are going to be resistant, it doesn't show what they are resistant to. Again, it sucks to see a wave of resistant enemies coming next, building flame towers, and then finding they are resistant to fire.

Make special towers worthwhile
There are a couple of special towers you can unlock, but have severe drawbacks. As well as having to use a high number of gems to unlock them and a decent amount of gold to build them, you are restriced to one. On top of that, they generally suck. Aside from trying them out once or twice and even trying them when they were upgraded to full, I never bothered again. Balance them so that they aren't too powerful if you can build more than one, or if that restriction remains make it worth the players while to invest in unlocking and building it.

Man the towers
PixelJunk Monsters differentiates itself from other tower defense games by having your character walking around the screen. Perhaps he could also man one of the towers, increasing it's range or damage while doing so, or even allowing you to direct where your firepower should be shooting (but probably not). This would be balanced by the fact that your tower would not be upgrading while you are manning it.

Multi-part enemies
Enemies in PixeJunk Monsters have different characteristics that usually mean they are weak to certain towers. Having enemies that have multiple 'stages' could further test players strategies. A couple of examples would be a slow moving armoured enemy who sheds his armour once dealt enough damage, and then starts running at which point arrows would be more effective. Perhaps even more interesting would be if he ran backwards to escape from the level; it wouldn't be as big a threat to babies, but players would miss out on the gold if their strategy allowed him to escape. Another would be a balloon that has some of the smaller enemies in it. The balloon would need to be shot down by anti-air or arrows before your cannons could deal with the little enemies... and hopefully your anti-air measures aren't all near the centre of your base.

Co-op specific levels
By it's nature the game already demands co-operation when playing with a friend. Still, it would be nice if there were some levels that demanded that extra level of co-operation in determining the right strategy. I'm sure there are other methods, but the main thing I am thinking here are levels that are divided by water, or other barriers that prevent players from reaching the other side of the screen in a hurry. Perhaps if one player fortifies their side of the screen too much, enemies won't reach the other side where the base is, and thus the other player gets no money and can't build defenses... which would be disastrous if the enemies got through, or every now and then they took a different path to reach the base.

Include a level editor
Sure, this would lead to a lot of crap, uninspired maps. But it doesn't seem like this would be hard to include, and would add plenty of longevity to a game that is already great value. Give players the basic toolset to build the map itself, then once they are done, they can set the waves, and trace a path for each of those waves to take. Of course, it should be a condition that no map can be published online until its author can complete it with a rainbow to prevent uncompleteable levels from frustrating players. With the standard rating systems used for this sort of thing, there should be a good number of great maps that reach the top in no time.

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I also realised I am behind on the Looking Back feature again. I'm starting to wonder if this is really Soapbox worthy. I don't really head into the forums much, but perhaps this would be better suited as a stickied (for a short time) forum topic. Thoughts?

Here is the list of games and their Gamespot scores, and once again I am finding myself only having played a few of the games. I've got Burnout Revenge which I will probably give another spin before writing my piece for it (though I can say already it is worth playing). I played GRAW and Battlefield 2 but it has been a while since I played them so I don't think I could be objective about them, and didn't get far in them anyway. Let me know if there are any on the list that you would like to tackle for the feature.

Looking Back March/April 2006

Xbox 360

Burnout Revenge 8.8

GRAW 9.2

Elder Scroll s : Oblivion 9.6

Dynasty Warriors 5 7.1

Far Cry Instincts Predator 7.9

Top Spin 2 8.2

Battlefield 2 Modern Combat 7.5

Tomb Raider Legend 7.8

PS2

Shadow Hearts : From The New World 8.2

Onimusha : Dawn of Dreams 8.0

Midnight Club 3 : DUB Edition Remix 8.2

Metal Gear Solid 3 : Subsistence 9.0

Ice Age 2 : The Meltdown 7.3

The Godather 8.1

Suikoden V 8.1

CMT Presents Karaoke Revolution Country 7.2

Kingdon Hearts 2 8.7

Full Spectrum Warrior : Ten Hammers 7.1

Dynasty Warriors 5 7.2

Major League Baseball 2k6 7.0

Tourist Trophy 8.2

NBA Ballers : Phenom 7.2

Tomb Raider Legend 7.8

Samurai Champloo : Sidetracked 7.6

FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 7.7

Atelier Iris 2 : The Azoth of Destiny 7.0

Ace Combat Zero : The Belkan War 7.9

Outrun 2006 ; Coast to Coast 8.0

PC

Lord of The Rings : The Battle for Middle Earth 2 8.3

Red Orchestra : Ostfront 41-45 7.9

Bookworm Deluxe 7.2

Battlefield 2 : Euro Force 7.7

Onimusha 3 : Demon Siege 7.4

Elder Scrolls : Oblivion 9.3

Godfather 8.1

Space Rangers 2 : Rise of the Dominators 8.1

Full Spectrum Warrior : Ten Hammers 7.3

Hearts of Iron 2 : Doomsday 8.0

Tomb Raider : Legend 7.8

Comdemned : Criminal Origins 8.1

Auto Assault 7.2

Dreamfall : The Longest Journey 8.1

FIFA : World Cup Germany 2006 8.1

Black & White 2 : Battle of the Gods 7.2

Call of Cthulhu : Dark Corners of the Earth 7.9

Take Command : 2nd Manassas

Guild Wars Factions 8.5